Highlighting the hypocrisy and double standards of Australia's official 'commitment' to the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan, and the celebration of the 'heroic sacrifices' made there by Australian soldiers on Remembrance day, was the appearance in our media of a video clip from Syria the following day.

This video, from the studios of the 'Al Qaeda linked group' Jabhat al Nusra, showed the last minutes before the martyrdom of 'Abu Asma al Australi', as he drove an explosives packed truck towards a military checkpoint at an airport in Deir al Zour, in Syria's north-east. In the video 'Abu Asma's' face was fuzzed out, though we could see a bushy beard and a stocky physique. He delivered a propaganda message of encouragement to Muslims everywhere to take up the Jihad in Syria, and make the ultimate sacrifice.

News is still filtering out today about a US Army Staff Sergeant who allegedly yesterday (Sunday) left his barracks in southern Afghanistan before dawn and walked to the rural villages of Balandi and Alokzai in Afghan's southern Panjwai district and went on a shooting rampage, murdering sixteen unarmed civilians in their homes. Reportedly mostly women and children are among the dead. The number of wounded is still not known.

Of course after having recently contributed an article associated with the Hoddle Street Massacre of 1987, such a tragic incident is on my mind.
As the incident is too fresh to know the truth, the causes, the details, no fair assessment can yet be made. That will be the task of the investigation as promised by US President Barack Obama.
Some questions though....

A search using the terms:Republican Primaries... confirms that Ron Paul's campaign to win the Republican Party preslection for Presidential candidate has been blacked out by the international corporate news media.

An Australian lawyer criticises Australia's participation in war in Afghanistan. Australia's participation in the Afghan war has helped bring world Opium production to record levels, with Afghanistan leading the way. The justification for this war was given in 2001, and remains the justification for the war, which is set to become Australia's longest war, nearly 10 years later. This justification has never been scrutinised by Australia's mainstream newsmedia nor what passes for Australia's 'alternative' or 'far left' media. In this article, that case for war is comprehensively examined.

Burial at sea?
Osama bin Laden's body should never have been disposed of without extensive evidence of death and identity being made available to the public. How is anyone to believe reports of his death? Cui bono?

In an address to the Australian War Memorial CEW Bean Foundation dinner on 15 October 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claimed that our goals in Afghanistan had been "endorsed by the United Nations Security Council." Australian lawyer Kellie Tranter asks: was the war authorised by the Security Council, is it legal, and how many civilians have been killed?

On 26 March 2009 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told how the image of the World Trade Center Twin Towers coming down, which he "[could not] remove from [his] mind," made necessary the continuation of Australia's increasingly unpopular intervention in the Afghan war. Perhaps it is time that Kevin Rudd took a proper look at those images so that he could learn what really happened on 11 September 2001.

Bonnaud and Gattegno did not succeed in silencing Bigard and Kassovitz on this : Why was Harrit, the scientist who had written the article that the ‘Truthers’ cite on thermite, not invited? It is true that if the co-author – Steven E. Jones – of the paper on thermite has written an article defending the idea that Jesus had appeared in America, that is disquieting.[2] Nonetheless, referring to the article on Jesus is not the way to respond to the scientific argument. A man may believe in fairies, but if he advances a scientific theory, then his theory needs to be criticized and analysed on the basis of the science it relies on; it isn’t valid to refute it by changing the subject to fairies. French version

The US's political discourse and foreign policy in recent years has been based on the assumption that Osama bin Laden is still alive. George W. Bush promised as president that he would get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" and has been widely criticized for failing to do so. The US's present military escalation in Afghanistan is said to be necessary to "get Osama bin Laden." The news media regularly announce the appearance of new "messages from bin Laden." But what if Osama bin Laden died in December 2001---which is the last time a message to or from him was intercepted?

Paul Craig Roberts, who served as served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, is scathingly critical of President Obama's plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan and expand it into Pakistan, whilst taking no effective measures to fix the damage "as great as would be expected from foreign conquest" that the previous Bush administration inflicted on the US economy.